Trust in Crisis?

Will Jennings is Professor of Political Science and Public Policy at the University of Southampton. Between 2019 and 2023 he led the TrustGov project funded by the UK's Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) exploring patterns of trust in national and global governance. He is also an Elections Analyst for Sky News. Daniel Devine is Associate Professor of Public Opinion and Behaviour at the University of Southampton. He has published extensively on political trust and related topics in leading academic journals and is the co-editor (with Professor Malcolm Fairbrother) of A Research Agenda for Political Trust (2026). Viktor Valgarðsson is Adjunct Lecturer in Politics at the University of Iceland. He previously held Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship at the University of Southampton and was Research Fellow on the TrustGov research project there. His research is focused on political trust and its implications for democracy. Jennifer Gaskell is Research Manager at the University of Southampton on a project that maps future populations for climate change mitigation. Her background is in the uses of new technologies for development and peacebuilding. Between 2019 and 2023, she led the qualitative work on the TrustGov project. Gerry Stoker OBE is Chair of Governance at the University of Southampton. His work is widely cited and includes the prize-winning Why Politics Matters: Making Democracy Work. He has held visiting professorial positions in South Africa, Iceland and Australia and has been an invited speaker to seminars throughout Europe and beyond.

• Acknowledgements; 1. Understanding political trust; Part I. Trust in Crisis?: 2. Shocks to trust; 3. Trends in political trust; 4. Who trusts?; Part II. The Drivers of Trust: 5. How do citizens make trust judgements?; 6. The trust family: trust, mistrust and distrust; Part III. Why Trust Matters: 7. The consequences of political trust; 8. The consequences of political trust in times of crisis: evidence from the COVID-19 pandemic; 9. When trust judgements go wrong: conspiracy beliefs and misinformation; Part IV. Responding to Trust Troubles: 10. Trust in crisis: the response of elites; 11. Political trust and democratic reforms; 12. Conclusion: nascent crises and signs of hope; References; Index.

'Trust in Crisis' is an outstanding and timely book. Combining conceptual clarity, methodological rigor, and remarkable empirical scope, the authors provide a compelling account of how trust, mistrust, and distrust shape democratic politics in an era of profound uncertainty. A major scholarly achievement, it will become essential reading for anyone seeking to understand what makes political institutions worthy of trust in an age of recurring crises.' Eri Bertsou, Assistant Professor of Political Science, University of St. Gallen